Spiritual Climbing to a Higher Love

 
I’m not much of a social climber.  I was never really very good at it; nor did I have any taste for it.  Neither am I a career climber.  Perhaps I could have excelled at this one; but I viewed it with divided issues.  And as retirement age grew nearer this ego driven objective grew ever so faint.

A spiritual climber, well, that was a different matter.  Its appeal lured me in.  I aspire to be a dedicated lover of God.  Being in love with God is the way to go my gut tells me.  There is none of the bitter disillusionment that embodies human love.  There is certainly enough of God to go around since He/She is omnipotent.  God embodies all aspects of love.  He/She is mother, father, spouse, and friend.  To love God is to truly love all.  I’ve often told people in describing my husband, Chris, that you could put a “t” at the end of his name.  “We are the mirror as well as the face in it.”  “In the garden I see only your face.”  (Two separate lines from Rumi)   Nameste’

Although God is the perfect lover, I am not.  Sometimes the separateness I feel drives me to affairs.  My other lovers, food or gluttony and laziness or procrastination, fall way short.   The one- nightstands are numerous.  Still God loves on.  The dance of love continues in the omnipresent light amidst my shadows. 

The following is one of my favorites by Rumi:
 
Looking For Your Face

“From the beginning of my life I have been looking for your face; but today I have seen it. 
Today, I’ve seen the charm, the beauty, the unfathomable grace of the face I was looking for. 
Today I have found you. 
And those who laughed and scorned me yesterday are sorry that they were not looking as I did. 
I am bewildered by the magnificence of your beauty and wish to see you with a hundred eyes. 
My heart has burned with passion and has searched forever for this wondrous beauty that I now behold.
I am ashamed to call this love human and afraid of God to call it divine. 
Your fragrant breath like the morning breeze has come to the stillness of the garden.
You have breathed new life into me.  I have become your sunshine and also your shadow.
My soul is screaming in ecstasy.
Every fiber of my being is in love with you. 
Your effulgence has lit a fire in my heart.
And you have made radiant for me the earth and sky.
My arrow of love has arrived at the target. 
I am in the house of mercy and my heart is a place of prayer.”
 
A Gift of Love – Deepak and Friends present music by the love poems of Rumi.  The Love Poems of Rumi Deepak Chopra, M.D./Harmony Books 1998